Day 13, Group A – Waspo 98 Hannover (GER) v Radnicki Kragujevac (SRB) 7-12
When Hannover stunned many by making the Final Eight last year, the Germans’ advancing was based on their very strong home performance. For this season few players remained from the 2022 roster – and practically nothing remained from Hannover’s home power. This Saturday they had a last chance to gain a win in front of their fans, against Radnicki which had to battle a handful of problems during the season (and the only team in the prelims which failed to make their home league’s finals).
For three periods, Waspo seemed to have a chance to close its home run with a victory, they went 4-2 up early in the second but the Serbs hit back with a 0-3 run to lead 4-5 at halftime. Hannover had some fine defending in the third, did not concede any goals for almost six minutes while netting two to go ahead at 7-6 once more. Still, they couldn’t hold on, and in 49 seconds Radnicki turned the game while killing a man-down between the two hits.
They repeated that at the beginning of the fourth, denied Hannover’s 6 on 5, then Filip Jankovic netted an action goal and after some tough battling Nemanja Stanojevic scored from an extra for 7-10. That broke the hosts, they missed three more man-ups (inished the encounter with 4 for 14) while Radnicki hit two more from action to complete a fine 0-4 run in the last period, indeed a 0-6 after being 7-6 down in the third. This was a somewhat fitting end as Hannover had to settle for 0 for 7 at their home matches and that inevitably kept them in the last position.
How they saw it
Karsten Seehafer, coach, Hannover
“We had some better moments but then we lacked the discipline and Radnicki could take the lead. We fought hard, managed to turn the result once more to our favour, but again, we missed a lot of man-ups, mostly because we couldn’t maintain a good level in discipline and composure.”
Stefan Urosevic, coach, Radnicki
No comment.
